Date: Sun, 3 Sep 1995 14:00:19 +0100
From: destanley-AT-teaser.fr (douglas edric stanley)
Subject: Re: The desert is growing


>Interesting to hear about this Deleuze chat show on Arte. I wonder if in
>your French group (almost sounds Gurdjieffian) you have ever have negotiated
>the domain of absolute 'survol'. As you may know it's a term from Raymond
>Ruyer employed particularly in 'What is Phil' and refers to the non
>dimensionality or transpatiality of visual and conceptual experience. In
>fact for Ruyer it's a kind of modified Platonism. Have you been this way?

No. I have not been that way. I have the book, have not yet read it for
other pressing matters are at hand. And anyway, I cannot agree more with
Deleuze and can even attest to it more than he can: I do not have a general
culture, I have not done the history of philosophy as he has (read
Pourparlers "Lettre =E0 une critique sev=E8re") even though I've done a bit,
and finally, as I realize more and more the more that I continue my
personal research that I've obviously been living under a rock for most of
my existence. I'm quite serious.

But it is a humbling chance, and allows me to even further possibilities of
meeting in interesting ways. And that humbleness is a necessity for all of
us. For example with this group. I've been studying with Raymond Bellour
the past two years and he was one of the people to get me back into Deleuze
after a typically shallow american introduction. Since then I've been
reading Deleuze quite intensely. But he's a marginal reader and is mostly
working in film theory, as do I more or less (perhaps more less than more).
Nevertheless, even with this kind of experience I cannot follow half of
what's going on on this list. Again, I've been under a rock. But I have to
ask this general question: this way of taking Deleuze and Guattari's
language and weilding it almost like a monkey wrench, is this not somehow
limiting the field of our discussion. Thinking as tools is essential but
how to wield them this is the question. I don't know what examples to give,
I'm too tired to get into it right now but often I find posted these
extremely technical usages of their terminology without page references or
better, quotations. And I'm honestly lost because such terms fall within an
"urgence" in their writing and that urgency has its own singularity even if
it is multiple. Nevertheless, my ignorance is everyone's gain. And I think
it's precisely at that point that something can be done.

Now, all that said, what would be this modified Platonism? Quite
interesting I have to admit from the outside although not the Plato part. I
honestly have grudged through Plato without much joy even though I've read
some wonderful readings (Deleuzian or otherwise) of him. However "...non
dimensionality or transpatiality of visual and conceptual experience" is
nice, and it would help me in my work if you could give me the page
reference (we all have reading restraints you know!). As well it reminds me
of smooth space described in Mille Plateaux:

"Mais dirigé ou non, et surtout dans le second cas, l'espace lisse est
directionnel, non pas dimensionnel ou métrique. L'espace lisse est occupé
par des événements ou heccéités, beaucoup plus que par des choses formées
et per=E7ues. C'est un espace d'affects, plus que de propriétés. C'est une
perception HAPTIQUE, plut=F4t qu'optique. Alors que dans le strié les formes
organisent une mati=E8re, dans le lisse des matériaux signalent des forces ou
leur servent de sympt=F4mes. C'est un espace intensif, plut=F4t qu'extensif, de
distances et non pas de mesures. SPATIUM intense au lieu d'EXTENSIO. Corps
sans organs, au lieu d'organisme et d'organisation. La perception y est
faite de sympt=F4mes et d'évaluations, plut=F4t que de mesures et de
propriétés." p.598

Here's the beginning of the English translation: "Directed or not, and
especially in the latter case, smooth space is directional rather than
dimensional or metric. Smooth space is filled by events or haecceities, for
more than by formed and perceived things. It is a space of affects, more
than one or properties..." -p.479 A Thousand Plateaus. (I'll let you finish
the translation. I assume you all have the book).

Smooth space. It's his entire thinking of the quilt and even in a sense his
"instant quelconque" (any-old-instant/any-instant-whatsoever - I forgot the
translation) in Cinema I: Image-Mouvement.

This idea of a haptique space (see esp. pages 492-499), that would take
part of the eye and of vision is nevertheless not reduced to a
stratification by it. One does not "observe" space in the desert, one is
more or less forced up upon it. No matter how far the horizon extends for
the eye. As they say earlier and as Deleuze says in Logique de la
sensation: In smooth space there is no intermediary or everything has
become intermediary. Desert. Sea. Quilt. Ekimo Art. Rhizome. and so on. No
longer are we in a space where one is positioned topographically (longitude
- latitude, perspective, heirarchies). We are in a space of negotiation.

It was funny when I ran across this discussion because I had at the time
been working on a series of videos that dealt with extreme closeups of
folds in the skin: rhinoceros, elephants, giraffes, humans, trees, mist,
etc. that themselves testified to just such a visual deterritorialization.
I didn't use this word to conceptualize the videos but there was something
odd about the resonance discovered postpriori. For the folds of the skin
were played on screens amongst a group of dancers who worked with a very
special kind of clothing (if you could call it that). It was the clothes I
was placing my videos in relationship with and these clothes were very much
concerned with a state of exteriority (cyllinders, doubled suits, drapes,
tails, single sleeves, etc). Well, suddenly when the work was over and I
was re-editing some of the material, I found this chapter in Mille
Plateaux. My surprise.

Anyway, that is how I understand such a comment as your "non dimensionality
or transpatiality of visual and conceptual experience." As I said I've been
living under a rock for most of my life. Perhaps I've got it all wrong.
Personally I don't care because it worked for me, but I'm interested
nevertheless in what relationship this would have to impossible
communities. And no we're not "Gurdjieffians" - just a few people who are
having difficulties surviving the current oppressive atmosphere and find
joy in Deleuze. Most of these people are not philosophers, but are students
of cinema and art. This amateurism is refreshing and gave me a new
"souffle" after all the american intellectuals and French philosophers I
was dealing with before. Amateurs are more important than you realize.
Deleuze and Guattari said themselves that Anti-Oedipus was addressed to
kids around the age of 16-20.

Anyway isn't Plato always modified Platonism?




Douglas Edric Stanley
Paris. 3 Septembre, 1995

"(place your witty quotation here)"



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